No, Zach hasn't grown up and left home. This is about my beautiful rosella who I raised from a baby, hand feeding, letting him sit on my shoulder, or head, or arm (I swear I still have puncture marks).

He's a big boy now, and this morning - somehow - he figured out how to open his cage!!!

I heard a flutter of wings, then Zach came into the room and asked how did Pepi get out of his cage? That was about 8 hours ago. And he's still on the loose. Thank GOODNESS the cage was inside at the time!

What happened to that adorable little bird who'd sit perched on my shoulder, mangling my earrings? All I had to do was hold up a cup with a spoon in it, and he'd come flying from wherever he was to land on my arm, waiting to be fed. What happened was he grew up. He became independent. He doesn't need us for food now. He learned how to fly - well - and enjoys being airborne. He learned that when we called him, we intended to put him back in his cage. And he got smart. And fast.

He DOES have a rather nice, rather large cage. With little doors securely fastened shut with wire now. But today he doesn't want to go back. No amount of toys, no amount of seed treats, is going to tempt him.

I've managed to corner him (which means he's in my "office" room and the door is closed so he doesn't have access to the rest of the house). He's more than happy to sit on my head while I'm working, or on my desk, nibbling at the corner of my mouse mat (it only took seconds for me to recall WHY we stopped letting him out of his cage!) Oops - he just pulled SOMETHING off my laptop and is busily nibbling away at it! The moment I move he's off - high up, out of reach. I can't coax, persuade, or bribe him anymore.

So now the gloves are off. Or, rather, the gloves are ON! A pair of gardening gloves, to be exact, because I KNOW what's going to happen the moment I actually DO catch him, and even gardening gloves will be little protection. It does makes it VERY difficult to type though.

In less than an hour, all going well, I will be happily sitting again, playing/debugging/making games, with my little bird sitting beside me - IN his cage. And I'll probably have a band-aid or two and have cleaned up the blood off the floor....